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Q&A How to keep a main character nameless?

There are two ways you can accomplish not giving a name to your character. Since there is a reason why she isn't given a name, you can simply explain that reason to the reader (e.g. by having the...

posted 8y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:09:00Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/21472
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:09:00Z (almost 5 years ago)
There are two ways you can accomplish not giving a name to your character.

1. Since there is a reason why she isn't given a name, you can simply explain that reason to the reader (e.g. by having the characters talk about it) and have the community handle the problem of a person not having a name in whatever way you think fitting (e.g. by using a nickname [which I wouldn't do, because a nickname is still a name in the magical sense], refering to her by function ["Mr. President", "Doctor", "baker" – think how many family names happened] or status ["unnamed one", "foreigner", "girl", "daughter", etc.]).

2. If you want the reader to remain unaware that the character has no name or don't want the reader wondering about why the character has no name (because you want the reason hidden), then simply tell the story from the first person perspective (people don't think of themselves by name, but by pronoun, so you don't have to give a name in narration) and paraphrase problematic parts of dialog (so whenever you feel that avoiding the name makes your writing awkward, you just do something like: 'The lord called for me to step forward.' or 'The lord pointed at me and waved for me to step forward.' instead of 'The lord shouted: "Step forward, Sarah!").

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-03-25T08:58:48Z (over 8 years ago)
Original score: 4